2013 SOTU Liveblog

Well, I was gonna try and liveblog this via a service like CoverItLive, but that’s no longer free, and the free ones only allow a very small number of monthly views. So, I guess I have to step back into the past and liveblog it Old Skool. You’ll need to refresh the page regularly, if you’re following along.

I hope CoverItLive fails spectacularly.

So, this is the night when the president turns his full focus on jobs. Again. For the 5th time.

18:10 OK, the King is entering the House of Commons.

18:13 One of the best improvements to politics I can think of would be for the president to transmit a written SOTU to Congress. If nothing else, it would deprive Sheila Jackson-Lee of her photo op.

18:16 If I was Obama, I wouldn’t start off by talking about the Constitution.

18:18We have cleared away the rubble of crisis. Not true. You’re still president.

18:19 Obama talks about revitalizing the economy, as if his policies weren’t an obstacle to that.

18:22 I guess Obama was for the sequester before he was against it.

18:23I think it’s precious that Obama talks as if Social Security was remotely sustainable in its current form.

18:24 Obama wants "bipartisan, comprehensive tax reform" that leaves the system of income taxation essentially unchanged. Like Social Security. Our entire political class lives in the past, and they don’t even seem to know it.

18:30 Obama is pushing 3D printing. That’s a really good idea. In a couple of years, home 3D printers will make great guns.

18:31 "Nothing I’m proposing tonight should increase our deficit by a single dime." And yet, somehow, they will.

18:34 I can not believe this guy is implicitly taking credit for energy production increases done in SPITE of, bet because of, his policies.

18:36 We can choose to believe humans cause climate change. Or we can believe that it has something to do with the thermonuclear furnace in the sky. As a great number of scientists believe, since he’s all giddy about science.

18:37 Man, this guy loves executive orders.

18:39 "I’m proposing a partnership with the private sector," because there just isn’t enough crony capitalism yet.

18:41Let’s help people buy more homes. Like we did, you know, before 2008, with the Community Reinvestment Act.

18:42 Preschool for every child in America. Why not puppies, too? Better yet, why not let the states take care of this?

18:44 German kids are ready for a job when they graduate high school. Because Germany doesn’t have the NEA, resisting every possible education reform. I’d be satisfied if high schools graduated students who were literate.

18:46 Every kid shouldn’t go to college. Not all the baby turtles make it to the ocean.